Breaking News: Giant Baby is still Giant

My son, the 8-pound preemie himself, had his 18-month check-up today. He scaled in at 31.2 pounds weight, 34.5" inches tall, and 51 cm head circumference. He was in the 95th percentile all the way across the board.

Which puts him at roughly the same size as the average 2 1/2 to 3-year-old.

So, it looks like his growth rate is not going to slack off any time soon. Which is cool, because Mommy likes the idea of retiring young to be supported by her professional athlete son.

But, as it turns out, apparently my kid is really smart, too. I'm not especially surprised; I figured he was bright. But they gave him an assessment at his pediatrician's and he scored in the 87th percentile on cognitive development and 95th on motor.

However, now that I've found out my kid is really advanced for his age, it makes me curious how he is doing in other, less easily measured areas of development. So I'm doing some assessing of my own...

Multilingualism. As I've mentioned before, we tear up some "Dora the Explorer" and "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan". But recently, my son's secondary language skills have gone interspecies. He has a stuffed black kitty he named "Mao" (I'm assuming after Chinese historial author Mao Zedong) with whom he holds extended meowing conversations. He has become so immersed in this tertiary language that he sometimes continues to use it even when interrupted by human speakers. Example: "Baby, would you like to play outside?" Response: "Mrow."

Problem-solving. He is generally not allowed on the bed, not because we worry he sheds or anything, but because he just wants to jump on it and try to pull the clock radio out of the wall. However, he has recently discovered that he can dump all of his blocks out of their bin, turn it over, and push it next to the bed to use as a stepstool.

Spirituality. My young son loves going to church and fellowshipping with everyone there. He likes watching the baptisms, where someone plays in the water and then everyone claps (he always claps along). And he really likes praying at meals, to the point where he'll often shout "Amen!" before the blessing is even finished, and jump right in to eating.

Commerce. My son has mastered a sophisticated and complex bartering system. For instance, if Mommy has coffee or beer she does not feel it would be prudent to share with him, he will offer something of value in exchange, like a pacifier, or one of Mommy's own shoes.

Fashion. Last but not least, my son has developed a very keen sense of style. Just yesterday he was insistent on wearing a pair of corduroy overalls too short, his fuzzy DJ Lance hat, and Mommy's sneakers. (Hey, it looks better than half the crap on "Project Runway".) The most impressive part was that he managed to walk in adult's size 10 sneakers.

Huh. I guess my kid is pretty impressive. Is it too early to start thinking about college? Because it would be really cool to have a genius kid at Duke on both academic and athletic scholarship.